Look but don’t touch when visiting this booth at the Wichita Autumn & Art festival
People often get “giddy” when they step inside Oklahoma artist Stephen Smith’s booth at art fairs.
And he doesn’t think it’s because of the fumes from the thick, colorful dollops and layers of oil paint that often retain their smell a year after they’re created.
“It’s the texture,” said Smith, who is this year’s featured artist for Wichita’s Autumn & Art fine-art show and sale. “They want to pet my paintings like a cat,” a practice he, like other painters, of course, discourages.
Smith, from Tulsa, is one of about 85 artists working in 14 artistic mediums who will participate in this year’s Autumn & Art, which is in its 14th year of being produced by Wichita Festivals. Held outdoors on the Bradley Fair Parkway, which is just east of the Bradley Fair shopping center at 21st and Rock Road, the show will be open 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16; and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17. It’s free to attend.
A ticketed patron party will take place on opening night on the tree-lined Wilson Estates parkway, with gourmet food from the Bradley Fair restaurants Bella Luna Café, Newport Grill and Il Vicino and specialty wines and spirits. A new feature at this year’s patron party is a live auction of two paintings that will be created on-site by artists from Brickmob, a local collective. The $150 patron pass includes reserved parking and complimentary wine, beer and soft drinks throughout the weekend.
Smith, 66, considers himself a self-taught artist after a stint in art school at the University of Tulsa didn’t pan out.
“It was the ‘70s and the teacher was really into Zen and over my head. I was thinking, ‘How’s this going to help me learn to be a painter,’” Smith recalled. A meeting with the head of the painting department led to a mutual decision that Smith “needed to go somewhere else.”
Soon after that, he met his wife, Susie, and they got married, and he went to work in construction for his dad.
“So, I put painting on the back burner.”
But not art.
He went to a vocational school to learn to be a commercial artist, and worked for several years doing that, often creating artwork for sports programs and posters. He even did artwork for an Aloha Bowl.
But doing customer-guided work wasn’t fulfilling — or creative.
“It was everybody else’s idea, not my idea. I got tired of that,” he said.
He started poring over art books and painting a lot of what he described as terrible paintings.
“I tell everybody that wants to learn how to paint, ‘You have to paint a lot of bad paintings before you get to the good ones.’”
He’s spent the past three decades painting full time and honing his craft into his current style, evolving from an impressionistic to a more expressionistic approach, according to his artist’s bio. His paintings are bold and almost sculptural through his use of vivid colors and textured impasto. Impasto, which means “mixture” in Italian, is a painting technique where the paint is laid thickly on the canvas, leaving visible brushstrokes or palette knife marks. Think Van Gogh, of whom Smith has painted portraits.
Smith uses a palette knife and an artist’s spatula to apply the paint to the panels he uses as his canvas. He builds special, box-like wooden frames for his paintings. The result is a painting that is heavy in physical weight as well as heavy in sensory reactions.
He often draws inspiration from photographs, like the one of the Rio Grande River he took during a trip to New Mexico.
A poster of his featured painting, “Autumn Day on the Rio Grande,” will be available for purchase at The Frame Shop and at the festival.
Other activities at Autumn & Art, besides perusing artists’ booths, include:
Oversized lawn games, including giant Jenga and Connect Four
Live music and artist demonstrations
Art-themed activities at Artie’s Creation Station, coordinated by Mark Arts
A build-your-own bloody mary station from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Participating artists were selected by a panel of jurors comprising three local artists: Rollin Karg, artist and owner of Karg Art Glass; metalsmith and glass artist Karen Karg; and sculptor Christopher Gullick.
Autumn & Art
What: An outdoor, juried fine-art show and sale, with live music, artist demos and other activities produced by Wichita Festivals
When: Friday-Sunday, Sept. 15-17; hours are 6-9 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Bradley Fair Parkway, just east of the Bradley Fair shopping center at Rock Road and 21st Street North
Admission: free to attend; $150 patron passes, which include an exclusive opening-night party, reserved parking and complimentary beverages all weekend, are available through Eventbrite
More information: autumnandart.com